Poverty in Malaysia and Nigeria as well as most developing countries are alarmingly visible. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in recent years of Malaysia and Nigeria has not reflected in the poverty alleviation efforts from the governments of both countries. The need to review the past policies on poverty alleviation in these developing nations prompted this paper. Using secondary data sources, the poverty alleviation policy in Malaysia has made significant progress, while Nigeria is still struggling. Interestingly, after decades of poverty alleviation policies, Malaysia has been moving forward steadily although there are identifiable challenges to overcome while in Nigeria, the policies seems to have no progress due to lack of political will.